On the road with 7 Gypsies

Good grief how the heck have I gone almost a week without blogging?!?
I must have had a very busy week.

I did go and visit Mystic Paper this week. Our fearless Design Team leader Sheri was there making up our kits for the month of February. She has me taking a trip with the 7 Gypsies. Four pieces of their luxurious paper, a yard of MP lavender ribbon and the instructions to make a 12x12 layout.


With Valentines Day (week for me) rapidly approaching at the flower shop, I better get my self in gear to have it turned in on time. As always Sheri probably has hers finished and on to other fabulous creations. She just finished a Vintage Valentines Book. Click on over to her blog and take a look...it's too cool.

Bed, Breakfast and Scrapbooking

I taught a beginning "Heritage Scrapbooking" class this weekend. It was held at a East Valley Bed and Breakfast, with a very limited student to teacher ratio. It involved organizing family photos and documents . Type of story to be told, selection of paper and placement of pictures and ephemera. How to use distress ink, chalk and different types of adhesive. Scanning photos and documents and a quick lesson on glimmer mist.

Okay...my Tucson sister (TS) came up to my house, spent a couple nights sleeping on an air mattress on the living room floor, made her own breakfast and I taught her how to begin scrapbooking. TS had never scrapbooked before. She makes lovely handcrafted Valentines cards every year, and designs beautiful quilts. But she has never scrapbooked. Her husband has some wonderful poetry that had been written by his mother and had been placed in a magnetic photo album... which we all learned long ago is a big no no!
We carefully removed the brittle paper from the album and semi-organized them into categories. There were quite a few poems, about a dozen photos and a few pieces of ephemera. We talked about the album and what she wanted the end result to look like.
The kitchen table was covered with glue, scissors, patterned paper and all the other scrapbook stuff that I pulled out of my wizards room to play with. Of course no scrapbook lesson could be complete with out a visit to Mystic Paper. TS added to her supply of paper, picked up a Tim Holtz Distress Ink pad , Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist and breathed in all the creative vibes at MP.
My mother was here also (she got the bedroom) and between reading in the sun room and doing her crossword puzzles she would lend encouragement and creative input. We inherited all our creativity from mom...she is one heck of a talented lady. We also managed to go to lunch three times while they were here. With her talent and the inspiration she is getting from the pictures and poems TS will have an exquisite family heirloom when she finishes.

Travels with my Aunt

I received a package in the mail from my Aunt Mary. She lives in Texas, and is my mother's older sister. Aunt Mary, mom and I have done some serious traveling together. The summer of 2007 we all met up together in London and had one adventure after another. We took tons of pictures, and made disks for each other. The package she sent me had the photo disks I had made for her of the pictures I had taken...which I intended for her to keep. Aunt Mary had also had copies made of all the photos on the disk and sent those too. Which only increased the guilt I have for the fact I haven't "scrapbooked" that trip yet. Yes I know it's was way back in 2007...I've been busy! It was fun to see the pictures again, maybe it will kick start me in to getting them in a book.
Aunt Mary knows I love old photos. In the package there were wonderful photos that had belonged to her friend Helen.
Apparently Helen was going to throw them out and Aunt Mary rescued them for me. These pictures are just too fun. I will have to come up with some clever project to use them on.

Arizona Cardinals

For all of you in Arizona, the reason the Cardinals won today is because I left the room. I haven't watched one of their games this year. If you could care less about Football...I understand. But...not only was this game a big deal for the Cardinals, but for Arizona too. Today's game was for the NFC championship, and I would bet most of the TVs in the state were tuned to the game.
We went over to my daughter and son-in-laws, had dinner, played with the grand kids and watched the game.
The Cardinals were ahead 24-6 when I sat down to watch in the 3rd quarter. The Eagles scored 19 points and were ahead by one point. I figured I better go in the other room before they scored again. While my granddaughter and I were playing Barbie's (because that's what you do with your DGD when you are a granny) the Cardinals won...and are on their way to the Super Bowl. I would have never had blogged about football except ...

A It's an Arizona team...what other excuse do you need.

B It really is a big deal. The last time they made it to a championship game it was 1947 and they lost 7-0.

C I could not come up with anything else to blog about...sad but true. I'm in between projects, and I don't have any photos of the flowers in the garden, the cat or birds. I promise to do better.

Out of the Box

Today was the due date for the Mystic Paper Design Team January project to be turned in. You remember that we were each given a wooden shape (see Undecorating Christmas post)with the instructions to select our own paper, and whatever direction we took with the shape was up to us. I wanted to do something "out of the box".

The shape sat on my table for a few day before I decided to put it "in a box".

I covered the wooden shape with the Basic Gray "Pinot Noir" patterned paper. Sanded the edges and distressed it with

Tim Holtz "Frayed Burlap" and "Old Paper" Distress Ink.I sprayed a spritz or two of the Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in "Sage" and "Coffee Shop" on the patterned paper. A corner of the "Chardonnay" paper was used as a frame for my image. The edges of the shape were covered with Stickles "Waterfall" to give it just a bit of sparkle.

The bird was cut out of the "Chardonnay". I back him with two layers of chip board to give him some dimension. Sanded the edges and added the distress ink. It was also edged with Stickles. The half circle medallion was treated the same way. With the addition of some blue rhinestones for Kaiser scrapbook. The rub ons are Jenni Bowlin. These are all mounted on book board covered in bits and pieces of the "Pinot Noir", "Chardonny" and "Chablis" BG. Then sanded, distressed and sprayed with the glimmer mist. I added some of Mystic Paper's great vintage look ribbon and a few more rhinestones.

I got mine turned in today, it was finished last week, but I hadn't had a chance to get into Mesa until today. Head on over to Sheri, Lindsey and Yasu's blogs and take a look at the different ways we used our wooden shape.

Hit Twice

I've been tagged...not once but twice. First Sheri got me, then Tanya. The rules (there are always rules) are I'm to list five of my "addictions" and THEN... tag five other people. I'm not sure if these come under the heading of addictions, but...

#1 My car seat warmer. I know it's Arizona, but it's winter and darn cold in the mornings. The problem is by the time I get to work I'm so warm and comfortable I hate to get out of the car.

#2 Britcoms. I love to watch the British Comedies shown on PBS Saturday nights. Keeping Up Appearances, As Time Goes By, Last of the Summer Wine (I have to put the close caption so not to miss anything) and Waiting for God. They are so... "British" and have a bit more charm that their U.S. cousins.

#3 Cats. I don't know how anybody can function in life with out a least one cat. Nothing can make a no good, terrible, rotten day better than a cat curled up next to you purring.

#4 A fountain Pepsi or Coke in the morning. It's not the caffeine, it's taking that first sip through a straw, when the taste hits your tongue, and the fizz tickles your soft pallet. Ahhhhh!

#5 Taking trips. Not vacations were you sit on a beach and a cabana boy brings you a fruity drink with a little parasol floating in the glass. But a trip, where you walk and explore every out of the way place, nook and cranny. Where you learn about the history, the people, and maybe even make some life long friends. Then every time you think about the place and the friends it puts a smile on your face.

Now who to tag? How about...

Lisa, House of Hullabaloo
Sandy, Her Vintage Stage
Becky,whymsicalmusings
Val, flippinpest
and my niece Sarah

Catching up

I'm about to have my January project finished for the Mystic Paper Design Team. I checked out Sheri's blog, of course hers is done and it looks great! Lindsey has hers completed and posted on her blog as well. She did a great job! They are such talented ladies. Yasu's isn't posted, so maybe I'm not the only one that is still working on their project.

While I was at Mystic Paper yesterday I bought two bottles of Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist. I think I may be the only paper designer that hasn't tried Glimmer Mist yet. I was a bit nervous about using it on my project, so I practiced on some scraps. Then I got brave...I went wild with all the sparkly mist! I had really been missing out on all the fun. I have decided it's my new favorite scrapbooking/paper craft tool. Okay...Distress Ink will always be my fav, but the mist is a very close second.

Undecorating Christmas

My plan for the week was to get the Christmas tree undecorated, taken down and all of the Christmas decorations back in their proper boxes and stowed away in the closets. The tree is still up, half decorated and half the decorations are laying on the bed in the guest room. I have to believe I accomplished something this past week...I just can't remember what!

I did get to hang out with the women of Mystic Paper on New Years Eve day. Kim and Jennifer had sent out an email asking for anyone interested to come and help do inventory, in exchange for lunch, gift certificates and a rollicking good time.

I was able to inventory my favorite, Basic Gray. Go ahead, ask me anything about Mystic Papers Basic Gray stock.

Sheri (Design Team Captain) was helping out also and she reminding me that our DT kits for January were bagged and ready. The only item in the bag was a "wooden shape".

We were able to pick out the kind of paper to use on the project, with the instructions to do what ever we wanted. Even after counting all that Basic Gray, I chose 2 patterned papers from the BG Periphery line, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

Now I all I have to do is come up with an idea!